November 3-5, 2017

Illuminating Our World

In 1917, at a time when many nations were beset by the tragedy of World War I, Albert Einstein published "On the Quantum Theory of Radiation." This theoretical paper on stimulated light emission foreshadowed the demonstration of the first working laser in 1960 and the first continuous output ruby laser two years later. Over the years following Einstein’s seminal paper, the evolution of this scientific and technological breakthrough was advanced by many people. Among them were Charles Townes at Columbia University, and Alexander Prokhorov and Nikolai Basov at the Lebedev Laboratories in Moscow, who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for their fundamental work in quantum electronics.

For the past century, researchers on the frontiers of physics have been illuminating our world despite times of troubling darkness. This illumination has been literal as in the case of the laser, and metaphorical with respect to new knowledge in numerous other areas ranging from the quantum level, to the cellular level, to the greatest distances that we can see into the universe.

NJIT is greatly honored to host this meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Physical Society, which brings together researchers whose work continues to be at the forefront of illuminating our world.